Treasure of the Dead

I had a detonator in one hand and a squeaky toy in the other. When I get nervous, I like to squeeze something, and for some reason my dog’s squeaky toy really satisfies the urge.

I’ve tried lots of stress balls and fidget toys, but nothing really beats the old squeaky toy. It just calms me down better than anything else.

And I was squeezing it constantly because I was quite nervous. Miguel was approaching the dig site, shovel in hand.

I knew he would come. That’s why I rigged some explosives ahead of time. 

It was a great plan. He’d walk up thinking he was the first one to find where the cash was buried. I’d blow him to all hell. Then I’d dig up the cash and make my escape with the money before anyone else knew.

I know explosives might seem elaborate, but that’s my style. I hate guns. I can’t shoot to save my life. Seriously, I’m an awful shot.

I was sweating from both my nerves and the heat. I had been sitting on the side of a mountain in the desert for several hours.

The first hour was actually quite nice. It was quiet, and the view was picturesque. Something about the vastness of the desert makes a man introspective, so I found myself lost in thought.

Then the sun rose further into the sky and suddenly I felt like I was being cooked. I was so relieved when Miguel finally showed up. He was riding a little dirt bike. The poor guy didn’t know what was coming.

He neared the spot, but I waited patiently. Setting off the explosion too soon would be a disaster. I needed to make sure he was right on top of it.

I was so focused on Miguel’s movements that I didn’t even hear the person sneaking up behind me.

Then I felt something poke me in the ribs.

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” said a male voice.

Being held at gunpoint was certainly not part of my plan. I’m not great in tense situations, so I started babbling.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re upset because I was about to blow up your friend down there, but maybe we can work something out?”

“Wow, you really are an idiot,” said the man. “You’ll be doing me a favor if you blow that guy up. The only reason I came over here right now is because you look like such a nervous wreck that I was thinking you might blow your load early.”

“Oh, well that does change things,” I said.

“Yeah. It does. So here’s what you’re gonna do: when I say ‘now’ you click down the detonator. Sound good?”

I nodded.

“Good,” he said.

We waited another thirty seconds in silence as Miguel took his sweet time finding the spot where the cash was buried.

“Now,” the man whispered.

I pressed the button, and a plume of sand and dirt appeared where Miguel had been standing. The sight of the explosion was quickly followed by the shockwave. We were at a safe distance, but I felt the man behind me jump in surprise.

I turned and looked at him. To my surprise, I didn’t recognize him at all. He was a fair skinned man with broad shoulders, and he wore a stern look behind his sunglasses and light mustache. 

Then there was a pause.

“What are the chances I can convince you to split the cash fifty fifty?” I asked.

He smiled and shook his head.

“So why am I still alive, then?”

“Because I don’t like digging.” Then he gestured for me to start walking.

I walked down the mountain, and the mustached man followed. I was acutely aware of the gun pointing at me the entire time. As I trudged through the rocky terrain, I contemplated the events that led up to this point.

Arthur, the old bastard, buried the cash out here thirty years ago. The only people who knew about it were him and his business partner, and nobody knows what happened to the business partner.

The old man kept a record of everything in his basement, and after he went loony it was only a matter of time before people found out that there was a huge sum of cash buried out in the desert. I thought that Miguel and I were the only ones who knew, but that obviously turned out to be wrong.

“How did you find out about the cash?” I asked.

“None of your business,” the man replied.

“Well how did you know I would be hiding on that mountain?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I was just following the squeaking.”

Dammit. Was I really squeezing that damn toy so much that it lead him right to me? I never was good at this type of work. My nervous habits were going to get me killed.

We arrived at the spot that matched the photograph. It was still recognizable despite the small crater in the ground and the pieces of Miguel scattered about the area.

As instructed, I started digging. I had no idea how deep it would be buried, and to my chagrin it was buried rather deep. The mustached stranger watched with satisfaction as I toiled with the earth.

Then my shovel hit something hollow, and despite the circumstances I felt a surge of excitement. It was a large wooden box.

My captor came over to watch me pull the lid off.

As soon as I lifted up the lid, I was hit with the scent of rotting flesh. Inside the box was the curled up and decaying corpse of a man.

I recoiled in terror. Then, feeling like I was going to be sick, I scrambled away from the hole and over to a desert shrub where I threw up the better part of my breakfast.

The mustached man, apparently having a better stomach for these things, jumped down into the grave. In my state of surprise, I hadn’t noticed that the corpse was clutching a metallic briefcase. The stranger pulled it from the dead man’s grip.

“Guess we know what happened to the business partner,” he said.

Then he hopped out of the grave, set down the briefcase, and patiently unlatched it to reveal several neat rows of tightly packed hundred dollar bills. He whistled in awe of the pile of cash.

“Turns out the old man was telling the truth,” he said. “I was half expecting to come out here and find a whole lotta nothin. But here it is, and it’s even more than I thought it’d be.”

We turned and looked at each other.

“And you practically delivered it to me,” he chuckled. “Man, you are just not cut out for this business.”

As the stranger mocked me, I was distracted by the movement behind him. A hand appeared on the edge of the hole. Then another hand followed. The next thing I knew, the rotting corpse was pulling itself out of the grave.

“Well, I can’t have any loose ends,” said the mustached man, unaware of the walking corpse approaching him from behind. “And I think you know what comes next.”

He raised his gun at me, but he must have noticed that I was staring at something behind him because he turned around.

Just then, the dead man lunged at the stranger. The corpse sank its teeth into the mustached man’s neck, and in a panic the stranger pulled the trigger. The gun went off, and I suddenly felt a searing pain in my foot. Thanks to my stupid luck, the wild shot hit me right in the foot.

I yelled out and instinctually grabbed my foot. Then my luck changed. As the man was being attacked, the gun flew from his hand and landed at my feet. It was a miracle. I crawled over to the weapon and picked it up. When I looked up, my captor was on the ground and the dead man had turned his attention to me.

Without wasting a beat, I fired. My adrenaline was flowing, and in my fervor I continued to fire at the ghastly figure. Next thing I knew, I pulled the trigger and was greeted with a hollow click.

Expecting the corpse to have been sent back to the ground, I was surprised when I saw it was still standing. It was then that I realized I had fired the entire magazine and managed to miss every shot.

Damn. I hate guns.

With what rotting flesh remained on his face, the corpse smiled at me, seemingly amused by my lack of firearm proficiency.

I tried to stand, but the pain in my foot quickly sent me back into the dirt.

The corpse walked toward me, and I felt my last glimmer of hope go right down the drain. There was no chance of survival.

Still, I found myself crawling backward in a lame attempt at putting some distance between me and the abomination.

Then I put my hand down and heard an unexpectedly cheerful noise, the squeak of a dog toy. It had fallen out of my pocket while I was vomiting in the shrubbery. 

At first I thought this chance occurrence was the universe giving me one final embarrassment before my death. But then I saw that the corpse stopped coming at me. Instead, it stood there, head cocked to the side.

I was confused, but maybe there was still some hope left after all.

I slowly picked up the toy. Then I gave it another squeeze, and this time the corpse groaned. The groan sounded like an expression of amusement.

I squeezed the toy a few more times to the same effect. Figuring it was worth a shot, I tossed the toy to the dead man. It landed at his feet.

Immediately, he bent over and picked it up. He squeezed it a few times, and seeming quite satisfied with his prize, he turned around, recovered the briefcase, and settled down back in the hole he crawled out of.

I limped away with my life, and as I rode Miguel’s dirt bike back in the direction of civilization I felt more alive than I ever had in my entire life. The mustached man was right. I wasn’t cut out for that lifestyle, so I moved to the other side of the country and started my life over.

I thought I had gotten away scot-free from that encounter. Then one morning I woke up to the news of an outbreak that was spreading rapidly across the country. It started in a little desert town in the middle of nowhere. The mustached man’s corpse had crossed the desert and infected the entire town. That’s when I realized that the real trouble had only just begun.